


If I'm Not Who You Thought I Was

by gilligankane



Category: Guiding Light
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-11
Updated: 2009-09-11
Packaged: 2017-11-17 09:44:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/550228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gilligankane/pseuds/gilligankane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If anyone deserved an explanation besides Olivia, it was Rafe, she decided.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If I'm Not Who You Thought I Was

After Olivia left her standing alone in the gazebo, Natalia wasn’t sure what she should do. A part of her screamed, “ _go after her!_ ” but another part of her, the rational part of her told her to go back to the church, to go and find  _someone_ she could explain herself too.  _Maybe Buzz_ , she thought briefly, but as soon as the thought entered her mind, it was gone, replaced with the idea of finding Rafe.

If anyone deserved an explanation besides Olivia, it was Rafe, she decided.

She found him on the steps of the church, not sitting because of the icy steps, but standing with his head tilted upward, seemingly waiting for the light snow to fall on his face. When he was younger, he used to run through the small park a couple of blocks from their apartment during the snowfall, catching the flakes on the tip of his tongue until his nose was raw and his smile was so wide she was afraid it would slide off his face. He had been so  _free_ then, so unaware of the world and the monsters that hid the dark corners. Now the light in his eyes was dimmed – it was there, but it was sheltered and guarded – and his smile was shaky and forced.

Prison changed people, death changed people, grief changed people, and the little boy from Chicago had become a hard man with a chip on his shoulder and a heavy conscience.  _Her_  little boy became a man and she felt like a long-distance relative: the kind that saw him once a year and each year he was just a little taller, just a little smarter, just a little more of his father’s son.

“You’re going to catch a cold out here,” Natalia said softly, placing a shaking hand on his shoulder. She almost didn’t feel his body flinch under her touch, but he covered it with a smile that looked more like a grimace.

“Me? You’re the one who’s going to catch death out here. Where’s your scarf?” He unwrapped his own scarf from around his neck and shook his head at her, putting off her complaints. “Just put it on,” he instructed, and she conceded, smiling at him gently. His arm lifted and landed across the back of shoulders, pulling her body into his almost suddenly tall frame.

 _It was almost as comforting as being wrapped in Olivia’s arms_ , she told herself silently.

“Frank was looking for you,” he muttered, his face turned down into her hair.

Now  _she_  flinched. “I saw him,” she admitted, her mind flashing back to the gazebo, to Olivia, to her heart softly cracking in her chest.

“What happened, Ma?”

 _What happened? What happened is that I realized I could never love Frank the way I love Olivia_ , her inner voice screamed.

“Rafe…”

He cut her off. “Ma, what happened?” he pressed gently. “Frank is a…

“Stop,” Natalia commanded, frustration underlying the weariness of the command. “He’s a good man, I know. We  _all_  know he’s a good man.”

“But he’s just not  _your_  good man, huh?” Rafe sounded like he was angry too, like the question was rhetorical and mocking, and she felt the sting of his words almost as sharply as she felt the sting of the cool air, both of them odd, out-of-place things in the month of April.

“No, he’s not.” Her words weren’t malicious, just true, still Rafe snapped back like he’d been hit with something heavy.

“Ma…”

“Rafe, please,” she pleaded, her eyes suddenly drooping with the heaviness of the day: with leaving Frank, with Olivia leaving her. “I want you to understand…”

“Understand what? That I was going to have a father and it got taken away, again?”  _By you_ , was the silent accusation his eyes betrayed. “You want me to understand how you went from getting married to running down the aisle  _away_  from the groom in a matter of days? How would I understand that?”

His arm fell from her shoulder and he took a step back, staring at her as if he’d never seen her before, as if he was stranger she’d just met in passing. She looked back at him the same manner: this wasn’t the son she’d known and raised; this was some stranger with Nicky’s eyes and her unruly hair.

They were strangers to each other now – whole chunks of their lives a complete mystery to the other.

The little boy she’s whispered her secrets and dreams to was gone and in his place was a young man trying to find his footing again, feeling betrayed by the loss of her presence.

“I need you to listen to me, really listen to me Rafael, or you’ll never understand.” Natalia waited until he nodded, then took a deep breath, trying to calm her racing nerves. “Earlier…”

“You mean when you were going to marry Frank?” he cut in bitterly.

She looked at him with a level stare. “Rafe, don’t.”

Looking past her, his shrugged and scoffed before he spoke. “Fine, got ahead and tell me why you ran away from a good man who only wanted to marry you.”

The little boy was gone and in his place was a petulant child.

“I spent half my life loving your father,” she started, not entirely sure where she was going with that sentence. The look on her son’s face told her he didn’t know either, but she held up a hand when he went to open his mouth, stopping him from speaking. “I thought I could never love anyone else after, after he, after he…”

“After he  _died_ ,” Rafe almost spat. “He died. Are you trying to tell me you couldn’t marry  _Frank_  because of  _Gus_?”

“Why does everyone think this is about Gus?” she erupted, the volume of her voice disrupting the silence around, scattering birds into the dreary, gray sky. “It’s not about Gus; it hasn’t been about Gus, ever. I’m a grown woman, Rafael, and I can love who I want, when I want.”

“And you don’t love Frank.”

“No!” The solid admission stole the breath from her body, leaving her to collapse upon herself. “No,” she said softer. “I don’t love him.”

_“I’m in love with you,” Olivia screamed, her hands moving to cover her face immediately, as if she could catch the words and put them back. Then her hands fell away and she was whispering this time. “I’m in love with you.”_

“Ma…” Rafe sounded like he was eight again, like he was standing in front of her holding the stolen candy bar and she was red-faced, lecturing him about stealing and the  _evil_  behind it and how if he thought he needed something, he could tell her. He sounded chastised, frightened and worried about her.

“I couldn’t marry him Rafe. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t marry Frank and say those vows. I couldn’t…”

He shushed her, pulling her back to him, wrapping his arms around her and enveloping her inside of them. “It’s okay Ma. It’s okay.” He took a deep breath and she felt his chest expand and contract through the layers of clothing. “I just want you to be happy,” he whispered.

Natalia felt her entire body still and stiffen. He  _wouldn’t_  be happy if she told him. He would  _never_  be happy if she told him that she couldn’t marry Frank because she was in love with Olivia. Even for all Olivia had done for him, even with everything Olivia had put on the line for him, he still resented her; she could see it in his eyes when the light hit them the right way and in his posture whenever he was around her.

“Are you sure?”

Cold air rushed through the empty space when he pulled back gently. “What do you mean? Of course I’m sure. Ma,” he paused and took her by the shoulders, tilting her away just enough so that he could look down into her eyes, and he smiled softly. “At this point in my life, in  _our_  lives, the only thing we deserve is some happiness. You’ve done so much for me, and you’ve lost so much because of me. I want you to have the world, if it’ll make you happy.”

The little boy was gone and in his place was someone with the potential to be a good man.

“I am happy Rafe. Well,” she paused and thought about it. “I  _could_  be happy.”

“Not with Frank,” he said, already anticipating her next comment.

She nodded and gave a smile she knew didn’t reach her eyes. “With Olivia.”

Her entire body braced for it. Each muscle tightened and stood at the ready, her mouth frozen open in admission. She hadn’t meant for it to be that blunt, that honest, but it was there, out in the open and she couldn’t take it back now.

“ _I’m not in love with him. I’m in love with you!” she screamed out, a weight momentarily lifted off her chest as soon as the words slipped past her lips. The weight fell back down though, heavier than before, as soon as she saw Olivia’s face: wide eyes and wide mouth and the fear etched into every crease in the blonde’s face._

“Ma,” Rafe said in a sigh. “I know that living at the farmhouse with Olivia and Emma, its familiar. I get that, all right, but I’m here now, and even if you’re not going to marry Frank, you’ve got me. And we’ll be okay.”

Natalia sighed; he didn’t understand.

 _He’ll never understand_ , the devil on her shoulder yelled at her.  _He’ll never understand that kind of love_.

“Rafe,” she started gently. “I love that you’re here. You have no idea how long I’ve waited for you to come home,” she said in a heavy exhale. “And while I was waiting, I found people that I could count on. People who made each day a little easier and, and it was hard at first, you know? Because Olivia is, well, she’s Olivia and I used to think we were nothing alike.”

Rafe scoffed. “You two  _aren’t_  anything alike.”

“Yes we are,” she insisted. “We both put our children above everything, we both work hard. One of us with larger results,” she added ruefully. “But hard, either way.” The next sentence flowed through her entire body before falling out of her mouth, lighting up every blood vessel and filling every cavity and empty space in her heart, so that when she said it – when it floated out between her lips and hung in the air in a soft exhale of hot breath meeting the cool air, it felt natural. “And we both love each other.”

“You’re best friends.”

 _He sounds like Emma_ , she couldn’t help but think.

“We’re,” she paused. “We’re  _more_  than that.”

It took him a minute; she knew it would, but then comprehension dawned on his face like the sun rising, starting with his eyebrows lifting to his hairline, followed by his eyes lighting up and finishing with his mouth in an “O” shape. She could see down into his throat and remembered when they thought he would have to have his tonsils removed, remembered how red it used to be, how raw and swollen. Now, it was just a black cavern, a dark space where he kept all his secrets and his half-thoughts. And when the minute passed, when his face lost its comical shape, Natalia was left staring up at a boy she’d never met before.

“ _What_?” He pulled back completely and she felt the warmth from his hands leave her acutely. “What is  _that_  supposed to mean?”

“I love her.”

“No,” he demanded, but he wasn’t even looking at her anymore. He gaze was wild, off to the right, then swinging to the left, landing on everything but her. “Is  _that_  why you couldn’t marry Frank?” He let out a bitter laugh, his frame folding until his elbows were pressed into the tops of his knees and he was perched on the balls of his feet. “Oh my  _God_.”

“Rafael…” she warned.

“Oh my  _God!_ ” The shout echoed across the church steps and she took a step back. “How, how,  _how could you do this_?”

“Do this? I didn’t  _expect_  this, Rafe. It just  _happened_. It’s not like, like I woke up one morning and said to myself ‘I think I’ll fall in love with Olivia today!’”

She couldn’t get angry at anyone else then: Olivia was gone with the words “ _there is no us_ ”; Frank was gone with the flickering hope that he would someday marry her; the wedding party had long abandoned the church; Father Ray hadn’t shown up to begin with. She couldn’t get angry at anyone else about the feelings that seemed to drop on her like a wave, like she was the unsuspecting child playing at the edge of the tide and suddenly, it shifted, swallowing her whole and dragging her out to sea without a life raft, or a safety net. They welled up inside of her, overtaking every other emotion she had ever felt and she was confused and there was no one left to turn to, no one but her son. The confusion and the anger swelled and washed down over her, spilling into Rafe.

“Ma!”

“I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t, this doesn’t happen to me. I just, I was standing there and she was,  _she was going to let me marry Frank_ ,” she cried out. “She was just going to stand there and give me away.”

“You’re wrong about this.”

“I’m  _not_ ,” she demanded fiercely. “And she, she just,” she froze, the enormity of the situation pressing down on her so hard she felt like if she moved an inch she would be shattered into a million tiny pieces of crystal, spilled out on the steps of the church, the steps of her everlasting constant. “Oh, God,” she whispered. “She just walked away from me. I told her I loved her and she, she walked away.”

The anger drained as quickly as the color in her cheeks. She thought, as she sank to the ground, to Rafe’s level, that she saw something like anger: more anger than just finding out she was in love with Olivia, but anger at Olivia for walking away, for having the nerve to not return his mother’s feelings.

“She walked away,” she whispered again, rocking back and forth.

“She doesn’t love you?” Rafe’s eyes shone with hope and Natalia felt a rush of disgust and fear mixed together.

“She does,” she said sadly, turning away from him. “But she said we couldn’t.”

“ _I love you, but you’re going to hate me for this_ ,”  _Olivia said, eyes heavy with sadness, before she turned and walked away, leaving Natalia alone in the cold._

“Well,” he pauses and Natalia does her best not to lift her head at the curiosity coloring his voice. “Why not?”

Natalia snorted and grinned humorlessly. “She said that I would end up hating her for this; that I could never really love her because too many things would be in our way.”

“Like me,” he said, echoing her silent thought.

“And God. And Church. And Frank,” Natalia listed. “And the sun and the stars and the  _freaking_  moon!”

“Maybe she has a point.”

Now she lifted her head to stare into her son’s face. “She  _doesn’t_  have a point. I love her and she loves me, and she’s going to have to grow up and get over it.  _You’re_ going to have to grow up and get over it.”

Rafe balks. “ _Excuse me_?”

“If you love me, if you  _truly_  love me, you’ll accept this. I know,  _I know_  what you think about her –”

“She’s manipulative!” he yelled over her.

“–But I’m in love with her. And she makes me  _happy_. She makes me so, so happy. She cares about me; she cares about you. She has done more for me than anyone has ever done –”

“You don’t owe her anything,” Rafe growled.

“– _Without_  expecting anything in return, without expecting me to pay her back, or return the favor. She did everything for me and never let me do anything for her. She never wanted anything from me. And she trusted me with her daughter, she trusted me to keep her daughter safe and happy and loved. Do you understand how  _hard_  that must have been for her? To put Emma’s life into someone’s hands, other than her own? She loves that little girl almost more than I love you, if that’s possible. And she just, she just believed in me and, and expected me to want to be more.” Natalia grabbed Rafe by the collar of his shirt, pulling him a couple of steps towards her, his feet dragging across the brick. “No one has  _ever_  believed that I could be  _more_  than who I am. No one except for her.”

“She was pushing you to be someone you weren’t.” It wasn’t Rafe saying that, it was everyone. It was Frank and Buzz and Phillip and Marina. It was the township of Springfield, stoning Olivia with their words while she sat back and watched them, listened to them try to convince her that this love was the result of circumstance.

“She wasn’t. She  _isn’t_. I love her,” Natalia repeated firmly. “You can tell me it’s wrong. People can tell us it’s wrong, but it’s not.  _Love_  is never wrong.”

“So you’re just going to go, all guns blazing, and tell the world you love Olivia Spencer?” Rafe asked mockingly.

“I’m going to convince her she’s in love with me first, and that we can be together.”

“And  _that’s_ your big plan? Ma…”

She knew it sounded ridiculous, that it was a fairy tale ending that might never come true. She knew her son was skeptical, that the whole town would believe she was being brain-washed, and that they would side with Frank in this battle that never really involved him in the first place. She knew she _sounded_  brainwashed, but she also knew that under what some would call naivety they were mistaking for determination.

Natalia was unwavering and prepared to do whatever it took to win Olivia Spencer over.

“I’ll do it with or without your help Rafael.”

He stared at her, taking her in, and he must have seen the lack of budging in her eyes, the lack of fear and the resolve reflected there, because he stared off to the side and shook his head over and over again, taking deep, slow, steady breaths. “This isn’t going to be easy,” he warned, a double meaning attached to the end of the sentence.

“I never said it was going to be. She’s Olivia Spencer. I don’t think she does ‘ _easy’_.” She saw the retort right there on the tip of his tongue, but he swallowed it heavily and nodded.

“I can’t believe – Just, don’t expect me to call her ‘mom,’ or whatever,” he grumbled.

She didn’t smile and joke about it. “I’d never make you do anything you didn’t want to,” she said seriously, her gaze cutting down into his.

The meaning wasn’t lost on him, nor was the look his mother gave him, daring him to try  _anything_. “Ma,” he started, and then stopped, seemingly unable to find words. “Well, then,” he said, sighing. “I guess, let’s go get your girl?”

Natalia stared up at him, both of them standing where they started, her small stature dwarfed by his tall frame, snow falling in a gentle layer onto their shoulders and piling in the soft curls of their hair. The little boy she raised, that dared to race through the streets of Chicago and who toed the curfew line every night, was gone. And in his place was a young man who could rise above his perceptions of the life he left behind before prison.

“If she’ll let me.”

Rafe heard the hesitation and the slight tremble of her voice and smiled puckishly, pulling her against his side as they started down the stairs, the train of her dress dragging through snow almost as white as the fabric wrapped around her body. “She’d be a fool not to,” he reassured.

“Rafe, you don’t have to– ”

“Yes,” he said firmly, without room for argument. “Yes, I do. Let me help  _you_ , for once in my life.”

She nodded, tucking her head into the curve in his shoulder, taking in his aftershave and his smile. “I love you,” she whispered.

“Yeah, all right,” he said nonchalantly, brushing it off, but ducking his head to hide the blush that spread across his face. “Let’s just get this over with,” he mumbled.


End file.
